> That's an unjustified qualification. I could throw together a spreadsheet format that is all text. The spreadsheet GUI then becomes a advanced text editor that, when editing that particular format, exposes advanced content-aware controls not at all unlike advanced text editors like emacs can for s-expressions.
If you could invent a text format that could be efficiently edited with a basic text editor then I would agree it's a DSL. But I feel like you would lose a lot by dropping a dedicated GUI, e.g.:
- horizontal scrolling of columns, adding, hiding columns
- "smart copying" a formula by scrolling down
- selection of rows/columns/cells
I don't think anybody would use such DSL using a basic editor.
Overall it's discussion about the definitions of terms, but I don't understand why people want to capture anything having some "editable format" as a "DSL" when addtional terms like "visual programming" allow more differentiation?
If you could invent a text format that could be efficiently edited with a basic text editor then I would agree it's a DSL. But I feel like you would lose a lot by dropping a dedicated GUI, e.g.:
- horizontal scrolling of columns, adding, hiding columns
- "smart copying" a formula by scrolling down
- selection of rows/columns/cells
I don't think anybody would use such DSL using a basic editor.
Overall it's discussion about the definitions of terms, but I don't understand why people want to capture anything having some "editable format" as a "DSL" when addtional terms like "visual programming" allow more differentiation?